


Celebration

by sharkie



Series: The Broad Walls [12]
Category: Babylon (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 09:41:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9715787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sharkie/pseuds/sharkie
Summary: Happy Valentine's Day, or something.





	

It's not that Liz hates Valentine's Day. It's just that she hates commercialised holidays and commercialised romance and long candlelit talks about feelings and excessive pink-on-red gives her a migraine. Plus there are, like, eleven different Saint Valentines, which is a lot of dead people to disappoint. Questions about what she has planned for later are brushed off with an awkward laugh and a joke about how she's dating London, duh, only London, it's not like she could be in a hellish romantic triad with London and a man, that's _ridiculous_. 

Today Scotland Yard is on higher alert in case of a spike in crimes of passion...as opposed to regular, dispassionate crime. Liz enters her office bleary-eyed and already exhausted by anxiety and society-induced saccharine-flavoured nausea. It takes her a moment to process the sight, but when she does, she stops dead in her tracks.

There's a teddy bear sitting on her desk, facing her, fluffy and smiling. On its chest is a bright red sticker cheerfully saying 'squeeze me!'. She's only had half a cup of coffee an hour ago, so she mindlessly picks it up and presses hard with both thumbs as instructed.

" _WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU THINKING, RELEASING THOSE NUMBERS,_ " the bear screams in a distorted voice, and she fumbles and drops it in shock, " _WHAT THE FUCK. WHAT THE SHITTING FUCK_ _._ " She scrambles to retrieve it from the floor and tries to turn it off as it continues shrieking about yesterday's mishap. Slamming it against the side of her desk could either break the voice box or prolong the recording - either way, it makes her look like she's attacking a poor teddy bear who's demanding to know why she's hurting it.  " _MAYBE YOU NEED IT PUT IN MORE AMERICAN TERMS? ONLY_ YOU _CAN PREVENT A MODERN VALENTINE'S DAY MASS -_ "

The recording cuts out mid-sentence. On the bright side, now she doesn't need those additional two cups of coffee. Liz plops the bear onto the desk with a small growl and spends the next ten minutes shooting glares at it in between reading from her iPad.

Then Finn barges into her office, the first she's seen of him this morning. She watches patiently as he slaps something onto her desk, next to the bear. It's [a greeting card](http://tehsharkie.tumblr.com/image/146744371226): the blue cover is as wordless as he still is; its main feature is a hole perfectly shaped to reveal the big yellow smiley face on the inside. He opens it and the surrounding space is totally blank. The back is, too. 

"I got this in the mail," he tells her in a remarkably even tone.

"That's nice. Write them a thank-you note."

"And this, in a different envelope." Scowling, he procures an identical card and slaps it on top of the first. "And this." Another identical card, this one crumpled, probably out of annoyance. "No return addresses."

"Hmm."

"Should I expect to be slaughtered by some smiley face-masked serial killer sometime in the near future?"

"I think you always have to worry about being murdered more than the average person does," Liz says affably. "Maybe not the second part."

Before Finn can retort, his phone buzzes; he whips it out, gapes at the screen for a second, and frowns. An obviously disposable email address has just sent him a single subjectless message consisting of one smiley emoticon. Liz discreetly slides her iPad out of view.

His eyes follow her hand. "I don't know what you think you're doing," he says, popping a piece of gum into his mouth. Ah, how she appreciates that telltale nervous habit. That first chomp registers like a fanfare in her brain, despite the fact that it's way grosser.

"You, on a near-nightly basis, against my better judgment." She taps the bear on the head or, more accurately, hits it. The recording doesn't replay. Thank fuck. "Speaking of bad judgment, I got your gift."

"Why do you assume it's from me?"

"I recognised your voice. It sounded better than usual, though. Sexier." This time, Liz rubs the top of the bear's head meaningfully.

Finn scoffs and turns to leave. On the way out, he glances over his shoulder,  suppressing a pleased expression with roughly the same amount of effectiveness as any plan he's ever suggested.

"See you tonight?" he checks.

Instead of answering, she sarcastically blows him a kiss. He mimes catching it and crushing it in a tight fist.

Liz finally returns the bear's smile as he walks off. She knows her partially-faithless Deputy is smiling, too. Every Saint Valentine can suck it up.


End file.
